Pillow Talk
by romansilence
Summary: Kate gets Helen to explain the secret behind a mysterious dedication in one of her books.


Sanctuary Bingo – 1910s

Disclaimer: "Sanctuary", its characters and background story belong to Damian Kindler and 3stagemedia. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be made.

This story was written for the prompt "1910s" on my Sanctuary Bingo – Second Round card.

Pairing: Helen/Kate, Helen/Margaret Radclyffe Hall

Rating: NC-17 (explicit depiction of consensual sex between two women)

Summary: Europe is burning. Helen searches solace and meets a legend in her own right, or does she make the legend?

**xxx**

**Pillow Talk**

**by**

**romansilence**

**xxx**

OLD CITY, summer 2010, Main Library of the Sanctuary

As per her habit, especially after returning from a longer mission, Helen Magnus wandered the corridors of her home late at night before retiring to bed herself. She called it her 'evening stroll'. Will called it 'patrolling', usually accompanied by the not so subtle hint that she should overcome her control issues.

The double door to the library was half open. Helen looked in and like many times before found Kate curled up on one end of the couch, fast asleep, with a book still open in her lap. Helen took the blanket from the other end of the couch and draped it around the sleeping young woman.

Usually Kate slept right through it when Helen took the book from her hands, put a marker in and put it on the side table. This night she woke up when Helen tried to take the book from her.

Kate blinked a few times and gave Helen a sleepy smile. "Doc, you're back."

"Yes, I'm back, and you, Kate Freelander, should go to bed and get some sleep."

"Who's John?" Kate asked.

"John?" Helen asked.

"Please, tell me that it's not Druitt," Kate said.

"He's not the only John I know or knew. Which John are you talking about, Kate?" Helen asked.

"The 'John' who signed the dedication in this book."

Helen looked at the spine of the book. "Oh, that John!" She smiled.

Kate sat up a bit straighter, "Yes, that John. Why would a guy write such a dedication in a novel about a lesbian?"

"Oh, Kate, dear, are you jealous?"

"Why should I be jealous of some guy? And besides, it was in the past."

"Yes, it was in the past, but John was not 'a guy', as you put it. She may have done her best to look like a man, but she was very much a woman. John was the author," Helen answered with an enigmatic and at the same time sexy smile.

"Doc!?" Kate blushed as soon as she became aware that her voice had risen to a high pitch.

"It was not much more than a one-night-stand, as you would call it now, and after that Saturday night I never heard from her again until her partner brought me the book after her death. Do you want to hear the story here or in my bedroom?"

"You know how much I love your bed, Doc," Kate said with a seductive grin, suddenly no longer even the slightest bit sleepy. "I can't believe it; you fucked Radclyffe Hall, the one and only Margaret Radclyffe Hall."

"Language, young lady."

LONDON, summer 1916, Coleherne Public House

Europe, no, the world was at war with each other. Abnormals in the war zones needed help, and I just had returned from a mission to the continent, spent mainly in ruefully under-equipped infirmary tents and doing triage in the trenches. I was weary, less in body than deep in my soul. I knew that trying to climb in bed and fall asleep would be a lesson in futility. So I sent my luggage ahead to the Sanctuary and went for a walk, staying away from the more unsavory parts of London. I had not planned to go to Coleherne's; it's just were I ended up.

Coleherne's had a long history of tolerance; I think it even already existed when my father was still a child. James and Nigel had brought me there after the Jack-the-Ripper-murders to get my mind off John's betrayal. I wouldn't say that we were regulars in any way, but we all liked the atmosphere and at the time there were only a handful of places where no one batted an eye when a woman came in alone or in the company of two men without being branded a whore. At the time the bar-restaurant had been segregated in a normal, in other words heterosexual part and a more open minded part. I had liked the atmosphere and returned sporadically.

It was a Saturday evening and the place was packed. I made my way over to the side of the bar with my back to the wall and I started to scan the room as had become my habit ever since….

Anyway, I couldn't detect any danger. During my first drink I had to let down five prospective suitors, four women and one man. They just had not felt right. I ordered a second drink and turned my attention from the tables and the dance floor to the length of the bar – and that's where I saw her for the first time.

She looked straight ahead. Her right hand was casually resting on the bar. In front of her sat a tumbler with a dark amber liquid. Every bar stool was occupied, except for those to her left and right. Everyone seemed to keep a careful distance from her.

I absently sipped my drink while I kept my eyes on her. I saw a handsome young man walking up to her. I saw them talking but the sound didn't carry that far. She turned around, her back towards me. Even over the distance it was evident that they were having words.

I still don't know what prompted me to abandon my seat and walk over to them.

The young man, and it really was a man, was still talking to her, or rather at her. She stared straight ahead. I stepped close enough to touch his shoulder. He looked around, surprised and enraged. Our gazes met. I don't know what he saw in my eyes but he ran off.

I took the seat next to her. I was wearing a tailor suit with a form-fitting white blouse, closed with about a dozen pearl buttons. The skirt just reached my ankles. My hair was pinned up. The bartender put a drink in front of me. It was the one I had abandoned earlier. I smiled at him. We sat next to each other without talking.

After a while I put my hand on hers, at the time that was very forward, daring even. She turned her head and looked at me or rather at my hand touching her. Her eyes were red and swollen, dried tear tracks were clearly discernible. She sat up straighter and squared her shoulders as if preparing for a fight. She slowly raised her head, our gazes met. There was so much pain in her eyes, so much suffering, and then I saw the black ribbon at the lapel of her jacket.

I asked her to let me help.

Her eyes widened and she said almost tonelessly, "My life has ended. You could do better than sitting with a breathing corpse."

"Would she want you to give up on life?" I asked.

She slowly shock her head. I put my other hand on her cheek and told her that there were better things to do than to stare at what smelled like a fine, old bourbon.

Her eyes widened even more, "Why? Why me? You could have anyone you wanted in this bar, but you choose the one who can't give you anything back. Why? I cannot give you what you want. I'm not right."

Her words touched something deep inside of me, maybe some sort of protective instinct. I suddenly couldn't stand the thought that someone who had half of her life still ahead of her would simply give up and let it slide away.

"Why you? Because you need it. I just came from the continent and I learned a valuable lesson there, from the young men in the trenches whose lives could be ended any moment. I learned that every life is precious, it's a gift. I learned that we should never take it for granted and never waste it. Let me show it to you."

OLD CITY, summer 2010, Doctor Helen Magnus' Bedroom:

"Wow, Doc that was some come-on, if I ever heard one. I never would have taken you for the forward kind," Kate said with a smile and pushed Helen's trousers down to the floor.

Helen laughed, that throaty, light hearted laugh she reserved for very special occasions and very special people. "As if I have ever been shy or reserved with you, Kate Freelander."

"Put like that, no. Still… I had to make the first move to get to where we are now," Kate pulled Helen's blouse aside and kissed her collar bone. "And that dedication… that must have been some fuck somewhere against a wall to warrant such a dedication."

Helen laughed again which did not keep her from unfastening the string holding Kate's sweatpants up. "Really, Miss Freelander, as if I would ever do something this undignified with a complete stranger."

The sweatpants fell to the floor, revealing smooth, lightly tanned skin and a neatly trimmed bush of dark hair. "Umm, I really like the way you dress, my Kate. No, Kate, Coleherne's had some rooms on the second floor for special guests, against a small fee of course and no questions asked."

"Rooms… Should I be jealous? You have never taken me in some flophouse above a disreputable bar," Kate said and unhooked Helen's black silk bra.

"Would you want me to, Kate? I think you deserve better, and nowadays we don't have to hide. Now, do you want to hear the rest of the story or would you rather like to discuss the differences in accommodations and amenities between 1916 and now?"

"Oh, no, I want to hear the rest. It's just that… the book, it was published in 1928. Twelve years is a long time to hold a torch for a one-night-stand."

They climbed on Helen's bed and Helen pulled the younger woman in a close embrace, protective and possessive at once.

"One night, almost a hundred years ago, Kate. I enjoyed our time together. After I got her to relax John and I had a lot of fun. That's all it was, and all it could ever have been. John and I were just too different. She was a poet at the time, and despite James' best efforts I never saw the appeal of spending endless evenings listening to the soul bearings of others. Margaret, John, she also was a devout Catholic and insisted on going to Mass that Sunday morning. And as you know I'm not the most spiritual person in the world. I especially never understood how anyone can reconcile being a lesbian and following the dogma of the Pope."

Helen saw that Kate wanted to protest and quickly continued, "Anyhow… John told me about the woman she had lost. Her name was Mabel Botten or Batten or something. They had lived together for eight years, shared their lives and their beliefs. If I remember right Mabel had been a singer, internationally acclaimed for her interpretations of German 'Lieder'. She also had been more than twenty years older than John, which then was a really big deal.

"John's whole life had been centered around that woman, and after her death, only a few weeks before we met, she thought that she had lost everything. She was understandably devastated, but it was not only her grief that had made her so despondent. Mabel had introduced her to her cousin. Una, Lady Troubridge, that's how she announced herself when she gifted me with the book a quarter of a century later. Una was married and had a young daughter, but John had fallen for her like a tree to the lumberjack's axe. John was conflicted between grief and desire. Spending time with me gave her a respite and judging from the dedication it also gave her some perspective."

Kate had turned in Helen's arms to allow her to look at Helen. "iTo the one who showed me the light in a time when I thought that light and love had gone for good. Helen, your light let me live again, forever yours, John/i," Kate quoted. "Yeah, that's some dedication. How did she find you a quarter of a century later?"

"When we parted ways that Sunday morning, I left John my calling card. She never called and I would probably have forgotten about the whole thing if not for Lady Troubridge's visit a few months before James, Nigel and I went to France to help prepare for the invasion."

"What did she tell you?" Kate asked.

"Lady Troubridge said that John had told her about me and the time we had spent together and that it had given her the courage to pursue her despite the difficulties. They had moved in with each other the following year and stayed together until John died a couple of months before her visit. John, it appears, had kept her personal correspondence and a few books in a chest, among it the first edition you read with the dedication and my old calling card."

"I bet you had a hard time explaining that you had not aged in more than twenty-five years."

"No, not really. I might have had a problem if it had been John but Una Troubridge had never seen me. And she was too much of a lady to even mention my age. However, I asked her about the dedication; she said that John never wrote anything non-fictional she did not really mean, and then admitted with a blush that our time together had not only given John clarity but that it had also taught her a lot."

"And, pray tell, Doctor Magnus, what did you teach the most famous lesbian of her time?" Kate asked and let the back of her hand glide seductively over Helen's side.

Helen gave her as sly grin and gently took Kate's hand by the wrist. She raised it up to her lips and kissed the knuckles. "Do you want me to tell you or to show you, my Kate?"

"I love hearing your voice, Helen. Please, tell me about your time with Radclyffe Hall, I mean with John. Who knows I might learn a thing or two or three," Kate said with an expression on her face that failed to look innocent.

"Nosy? Are you?" Helen asked.

"Just start talking, Doc."

"Your wish is my command, my Kate."

LONDON, summer 1916, Coleherne Public House:

The waitress led us upstairs, opened the door and lit the gas lamps mounted on the walls. The room was just big enough for a dresser with a washbasin and the bed, but it was clean. Nikola had insisted on installing electric lights in the Sanctuary some twenty years earlier. So, the gas light lent the room an almost surreal quality, at least from my point of view. John was too nervous to see that or anything else. By the time the door had closed behind the waitress she was fidgeting.

I took her hands in mine and told her that we would not do anything she didn't want. She looked at me like a deer caught in the headlights. Her eyes grew wide, again, and she started to babble. I don't remember all of it but it boiled down to… She apparently had read Kraft-Ebbing and Ellis and Freud and then had mixed it all up with the Catholic dogma and the common interpretation of the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah.

More than once she said, "I am a true invert."

She said, "I can not help my feelings but I can help my actions. I have to fight that mental illness."

I didn't know whether to laugh, to roll my eyes in exasperation or to go out and burn all the nonsense men have published about sex in the past century, especially about female sexuality.

John told me that it had been wrong to follow me to the room. She said that it was wrong to want something God had expressly forbidden, wrong to give into the temptation.

She slowly calmed down after I had maneuvered her to the bed and put my hand on her cheek. It probably was the skin on skin contact. I got her to tell me about her life, that's when she told me about Mabel.

John was not very graphic in her descriptions but she said enough to make me understand that she never really had had sex with a woman. Mabel and John had kissed and cuddled, they had slept in the same bed whenever possible, but it never went past some light petting and necking, and even that usually had sent Mabel to confession and led to John's temporary banishment from the bed.

Her face was flushed and she didn't dare look me in the eyes. It was an adorable sight, all that tough, butch exterior and then the vulnerable, confused woman underneath.

I do not remember the exact words I used to get her to relax and trust me, and calming down a skittish virgin had certainly not been on my agenda when I had left the Sanctuary. All I had wanted was to relax and once I had arrived at Coleherne's maybe have some fun.

I only know that it worked. The tension left her body and I started to undress her. The jacket came off without a problem and she didn't protest when I removed her cuff links, letting the sleeves of her dress shirt fall almost to her fingertips. But she stopped me when I raised my hands to undo her white bow-tie. I guided her hands over, close to my chest. I opened the first two mother-of-pearl's buttons of my blouse and pulled her hands closer. She understood. She undid the next couple of buttons until the uppermost laces for my chemise became visible.

John let her hands sink back in her lap. Her eyes were downcast. I once again cupped her cheek to make her look up and smiled at her. I tugged on the bow-tie and put it on the small nightstand next to her monogrammed cuff-links. Her hands trembled when she reached over to undo more of my buttons. Her eyes darkened. I could see her pulse point throbbing.

I bent forward to gain easier access to the buttons of her dress shirt. She froze, a frightened expression on her face. I pulled her closer. Our lips met…

OLD CITY, summer 2010, Helen's bedroom

"Dear Lord, Kate, stop it. You're making all coherent thought fly out of the window. I can not possibly focus on recounting the past when what you do in the present is so much more tempting," Helen protested.

Kate flicked Helen's right nipple. She raised her head and looked into Helen's deep, dark blue eyes, the pupils widened in arousal. "So, does the great Helen Magnus admit defeat?"

"I admit to nothing," Helen said and pushed herself up on an elbow. "Besides, it's you who wanted to hear about my time with 'John'."

"Hmm," Kate kissed her way up from the swell of Helen's breast to the side of her throat. She looked up and locked gazes with Helen. "Just skip to the more interesting parts, Doc. Personally I find hearing about someone undressing you less appealing than doing it myself."

Helen laughed and squirmed on the mattress to allow her to keep Kate in her line of sight, not that there was much to see. Kate's hair was falling over her face, obscuring Helen's view of what Kate's lips were doing with her nipple.

Suddenly the ministrations stopped, Kate looked up and made eye contact with Helen, "Get talking, Doc, or I'll be forced to go back to my own room to entertain myself, all alone."

"If you insist, Miss Freelander. Since you don't want to hear how John pealed me out of my tailor suit… But I'm warning you, Kate, you then will miss out on John's most attractive feature."

"And what would that be, Doctor Magnus?" Kate asked and stroked the sides of Helen's breasts.

"Her lips, my Kate, her lips…"

LONDON, summer 1916, Coleherne's Public House

The more of my chemise became visible under my blouse the more nervous John became. I could almost see the tension rising in her and so, I kissed her to get her to relax and make it easier on myself to get her out of that suit. For the first few moments John kept her lips closed but as you know I'm not easily deterred. I removed my lips from hers and retraced her lips with my tongue. Her lips tasted sweet.

And then she returned the kiss. I felt the tip of her tongue on my own lips, gently, exploring. As inexperienced as John was with everything else, she was an amazing, a gifted kisser. Her lips and tongue orchestrated an intimate dance I had rarely felt with any of my previous lovers. It was new and thrilling and breathtaking and at the same time familiar, comfortable even.

It took all of my will power to keep undressing her and finally myself. She was completely focused on our kiss, absorbed by it. It was incredible, sensual in a way I had not expected; but from then on I knew that she would probably not need much more than a few pointers to unleash her sexual potential. And, oh, Kate, was I right…

I let her take the lead with the kissing and stroked her sides and then her breasts. She shivered under the touch but she also didn't stop kissing me. I caressed her small breasts, avoiding the nipples because I did not want to spook her. To me it seemed to take an eternity but she finally began to mimic my movements. Her touch was hesitant at first, not much more than a whisper on my skin but she grew bolder in time.

John was a quick study, a very quick study. We had to break the kiss every now and then but in retrospect it blended into one single kiss. For a very long time her lips didn't leave mine. We explored each other's skin. I guess after having spent a few months in field hospitals on the Continent mine was quite a bit rougher than hers, but John seemed to relish the feeling. She seemed particularly fascinated by a fresh scar on my shoulder, a chip from a brick stone that hit me in an abandoned hamlet in Belgium.

"Let me kiss you back," I asked after a while.

John looked at me with wide eyes. "Trust me, John. I'll stop whenever you want me to. Just say 'no' and we will stop."

John nodded and I moved just enough to whisper in her ear that I was very proud of her. Her heart rate picked up and she closed her hands on my hips like a lifeline. I wanted to go down on her and taste her. I wanted to find out if she tasted as good as her skin felt. I kissed my way down her throat and licked the pulse point at her neck. We were still sitting up but I wanted more and tried to press her back on the mattress.

She resisted. So, I kissed her again. This time she did not take the initiative. She just gave in and for a few moments I feared that she would simply shut down, but her muscles didn't tense and she didn't try to push me back. I claimed her mouth and she stopped to resist me. I could still see some trepidation in her eyes but I also saw the trust I had asked of her.

I broke the kiss and once again began to kiss my way down her neck and to her collarbone. I kissed my way down to her right breast, tiny butterfly kisses. I reached her nipple. It was rock hard. I took it between my lips. I expected John to tense up again but instead she sank down on the mattress and pulled me with her. I let my knee rest between her thighs and pressed against her centre.

She moaned.

The sound was intoxicating.

I flicked her nipple with my tongue and squeezed her other breast softly. She arched into it and I intensified my touch. She was so responsive. It was a heady feeling. I let my teeth scrape over her nipple. She trembled at the touch. I felt her hands on my back, gripping me, pulling me closer. She rolled us to the side and pulled me closer to her. Suddenly my pelvic bone was touching her clit. I could almost feel it pulsing under my skin. An exag….

OLD CITY, summer 2010, Helen's bedroom

Kate sealed Helen's lips with her own. Her tongue demanded entrance and Helen gave in. Kate had her own, unique way of kissing, not only intoxicating but also addictive, extremely addictive. Helen had yet to regret letting the young woman have her way. At the same time Kate's hand roamed over her belly, between the underside of her breasts and her well-trimmed nether hair. Helen arched into the touch, flexing her abdominal muscles in the process.

Kate answered by intensifying the kiss and letting her hand glide further south. She retraced Helen's outer and inner labia with the slightest touch of the fingers, not more than a whisper of skin against skin but more than enough to let Helen's juices flow more abundantly.

"So eager, my Helen, so beautiful," Kate whispered in her ear when they had to break the kiss, "so responsive."

She licked her way down to Helen's pulse point and pressed her tongue against it as if to measure Helen's arousal by her heartbeat. She suckled it a bit but was careful not to leave a mark. And then she was gone. Her hands were gone and her lips were gone and the mattress shifted under Helen.

Before Helen had the chance to look around to find out what Kate was doing her legs were spread and Kate's hands caressed the inside of her thighs. Helen's moan conjured a proud and at the same time mischievous smile on Kate's face. The smell of Helen's arousal was heady, almost overwhelming but Kate resisted; she wanted to tease her lover a bit more before giving her what they both wanted.

For minutes that seemed like hours to Helen Kate let her hands roam freely over Helen's legs and stomach and hips, never even coming close to the parts of her body Helen so desperately needed to be acknowledged. Helen arched off the silken sheets and spread her legs even wider. Her moan turned into a groan and Kate no longer could resist the sight and sensations. She dived down, licked the wetness from Helen's nether lips and drank in the intoxicating scent. The tip of her tongue touched Helen's clitoris. Helen's hips bucked. Kate entered her with two fingers, meeting no resistance. Her long digits were immediately sucked in further and enclosed by Helen's inner muscles.

"Please, Kate, please," Helen pleaded softly.

Kate knew exactly what she wanted, what Helen needed. She also knew that she could draw it out much longer but the raw want in Helen's voice washed away her resolve. So, Kate replaced her tongue with the pad of her thumb and pressed herself back up. Her lips found Helen's. Helen pulled her closer. Kate could feel Helen's fortunately blunt nails on her back. Their gazes met. Kate added a third finger. Helen bucked her hips, her upper thigh touching Kate's moist centre. Helen's pupils were so dilated; all that was left of the deep blue of her iris was a small almost imperceptible blue ring that seemed to pull everything into the inky darkness of the pupil like matter into a black hole.

"Come for me, my Helen," Kate's lips formed the words but her own arousal had made her throat too dry to speak.

Helen didn't need any sound to understand. Her inner muscles clenched rhythmically around Kate's fingers. Her thigh pressed harder against Kate's centre. She cried out Kate's name at the peak of her climax and still had the presence of mind to replace her thigh with two of her fingers and her thumb. The combination propelled Kate over the edge as well.

Kate felt her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. She saw Helen's still dark eyes. She was irresistibly pulled in. They kissed again, no, they didn't kiss; they shared a breath.

Helen rolled them to the side without dislodging their fingers or parting their lips. Helen's thumb stroked the skin and trimmed curls just above Kate's clit, a movement that never failed to let her relax after a climax. They broke the kiss but held visual contact. Helen's pupils began to retract but Kate knew from experience that it would take some time before they would return to their usual size. She promised herself that she would get them back to their most dilated state at least once more that night.

"I love you, Doctor Helen Magnus," Kate whispered.

"And I love you, my darling Kate," Helen whispered back and pulled Kate closer. "You are one of a kind, Miss Freelander, and I fear the day that I will get to recount one of my past sexual adventures to the end because you grew tired of me."

"There's nothing to fear, my Helen. The only thing that could keep me from getting carried away by your sensual voice telling of your past exploits between the sheets and elsewhere would be my advanced age," Kate said and put tiny kisses on every finger of Helen's free hand. "Just think, a hundred years from now you can tell your next lover about how I coaxed you to tell me about your former lovers and never let you finish a tale and you can tell her or him everything I did to distract you. And I bet your new lover will also not let you finish."

Helen sealed Kate's lips with hers. She didn't want to hear Kate talking about any hypothetical future lover. She didn't want to hear about a future lover or the future at all. Kate was more to her than just one in a long line of lovers, and it was time to tell her just that.

"You, my Kate, are more than just one in a long line. You are more than just someone I work with and take to bed occasionally. I do not use the word 'love' lightly, and I love you."

"I love you, Helen-mine, and I'll pay every price to stay with you. But now, tell me more about your night with Radclyffe Hall, so that I can interrupt you again."

Helen laughed and kissed Kate. "I have a better idea. Let's go right to the interrupting."

Kate kissed back….

**The END**


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